Volt emits a powerful electric pulse, any enemies that are hit with the initial pulse or that enter the pulse's area in first 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 seconds after the cast will become stunned and emit arcs of electricity like Tesla Coils, shocking hostiles who come within 4 meters.

Enemies can still receive damage from outside sources during the initial 4 seconds of Discharge.

Note that while damage from most sources (shooting, melee-ing, abilities, etc.) does not contribute to the Health cap, damage from nearby enemies also under the Tesla effect will. That is, enemies are more likely to reach the Health cap if they are being shocked by other nearby targets effected by Discharge.

Loot crates can also undergo the Tesla effect, but can only be charged once.

The 4 second delay of damage is not affected by Power Duration mods.

Volt's Passive does contribute to Discharge's total damage output. A rank-3 Discharge with max ranked Intensify and fully charged passive will deal a total of (450 × 1.3) × 7.5 + 1000 = 5387.5 damage as opposed to a total of 4387.5 damage without the passive.

You should cast Discharge when targets are in a close proximity to one another (4 meters or less) rather than when they are far apart. This will ensure that enemies take more damage during the 4 second delay, as well create more damage sources if more than two enemies are present in each other's range.

Building for Power Strength and Power Duration is the best way to get the most out of Discharge against all enemy types while also complementing Volt's other 3 abilities.

Against unarmored targets, Discharge will deal damage equal to the value of the modded/unmodded Health Cap in time less than or equal to 7.33s / 9.71s / 11.5s / 12.89s (or until dead), so building Power Strength as high as you can is important when dealing with high level, unarmored enemies.

Against armored targets, Discharge's stunlock will often last the entire modded/unmodded Effect Duration because the amount of damage dealt by Discharge will be reduced by the armor, so they will likely never reach the damage cap. Modding Power Duration as high as you can is important when dealing with high level, armored enemies.

Maximization is a form of specialization: mods may be blended to result in values that vary between the top-end limits listed here. Click any maximized link to learn how to build it.